


Mr. Lonely & Son

by ShariDeschain



Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Bruce Wayne Needs a Hug, Dick Grayson is Robin, Gen, Panic Attacks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-02
Updated: 2020-02-02
Packaged: 2021-02-27 21:28:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,367
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22532482
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShariDeschain/pseuds/ShariDeschain
Summary: Nine years old Dick almost gets shot and Bruce has a panic attack and gets in a quarrel with his own kitchen.
Relationships: Dick Grayson & Bruce Wayne
Comments: 10
Kudos: 177
Collections: COWT - Clash Of the Writing Titans/Chronicles Of Words and Trials





	Mr. Lonely & Son

It hits him about three hours later, when he’s already home, all showered and bandaged up and ready for a long night sleep, even if there’s not much night left at this point.

It starts slowly, with a little pressure on his temples, like a migraine in progress, but somewhat softer, and colder. A lot colder. Then the cold gets under his skin, seeps into his blood, freezes him in the middle of his kitchen, one hand reaching for the fridge’s handle.

Bruce looks at his fingers, his very pink, warm-looking and freshly washed fingers, and he notices that they’re shaking. His whole hand is shaking. He raises the other one to his face and yes, it’s a two out of two.

“Just adrenaline leftovers” he says to his kitchen. None of his appliances is willing to comment on that, but the buzz of the refrigerator now sounds like it's making accusations. 

“I’m fine. He’s fine”, Bruce continues. And it’s all true: apart from a couple of bruises he's physically fine, and as for Dick, the last time he checked, i.e. no more than four minutes ago, he was lying quietly in his bed, apparently unaffected by the events of the night.

And yet his hands are shaking, and his veins feel like frozen underground rivers running through him like a high-speed train. 

It was the gun, Bruce figures. The black barrel pressed so close to Robin’s face. The smell of burning still hovering in the air. Gotham’s alleys can all look the same if you don’t pay close attention. And some nights more than others the white reflections of the streetlights still reminds him of pearls.

He opens the fridge, grabs a bottle of water and drinks a long sip that leaves him almost breathless. Cool drops slide down the corners of his mouth, dampening his chin only to jump into the void that separates them from the tiled floor. _Splash._

The clink of glass against marble creates an echo around the empty room when Bruce puts the bottle down on the kitchen counter. When he presses both his hands against the fridge’s door, they’re still shaking.

 _Dick was never in any real danger_ , he argues with himself. God knows how many times he’s seen with his own eyes how slippery that kid can become when he wants to. No, even if Batman had not pounded full force into the man that was holding him at gunpoint, Dick would’ve freed himself with a cheerful casualness Bruce himself has never possessed.

He’s sweating now, which is ridiculous, since he’s still freezing.

His brain quickly fills itself up with incontrovertible facts. One: Dick is not faster than a bullet. Two: the average survival rate of a gunshot wound to the head is about five percent. Three: Dick is nine years old and his responsibility. Four: Alfred’s going to be mad about the water ring. Five: Dick could’ve died tonight. 

It’s stupid to have a panic attack about it now, in the dark loneliness of his own kitchen, after it all went well, but better now than then, in the middle of the street, where one little hesitation could’ve given the evening a much, much worse ending, Bruce supposes. 

Hard, deep gulps of air come in. Short, choked breaths come out. Now he’s pressing his forehead too against the refrigerator door, and the cold surface helps him to keep his thoughts under control. It’s not difficult. He’s trained for this.

He wants to, but doesn’t close his eyes. Keeps them open even when they start to burn, and stares down at the floor until he loses the focus and his eyes feel like glass. In his head, Bruce counts.

It takes him one hundred and sixty four seconds to calm himself down. Way too long. He should be able to stay under the two minutes, by now. He’s been practicing a lot and for a long time, after all. But he’s sure he will improve, eventually. It’s not like Dick’s not going to provide him any more training in regard of that.

Slowly, he turns around and steps away from the refrigerator, leaving it alone to its stern buzzing that Bruce, in his head, somewhat associates with Alfred's stark gaze. It’s stupid, maybe, but he’s seen a lot of stranger things, and a kitchen that takes on the personality of its owner wouldn’t even make it to the top ten.

He looks out the window, where the cold has decided to freeze into snow. The easy dance of the snowflakes in the night sky and their journey to the windowsill helps him to calm down a little more, until there's no trace of that unexpected rush of panic left but the sweat-soaked tank top still sticking to his back.

Part of him wants to go outside, to walk barefoot on the pristine blanket of fresh snow just to feel the bites of the cold against the skin, let the ice bring back peace and immobility into his mind and body. It sounds much more inviting than going up the stairs to his bedroom and lie down to stare at the ceiling with wide-open eyes, waiting for a few hours of rest that he knows just won't come.

The footsteps behind him are as soft as only children footsteps can be, but still not light enough not to draw Bruce’s attention. He allows himself to close his eyes for one moment then, to take one last second for himself before turning back to the dark kitchen again.

Dick is a little more than a shadow lingering in the door frame, but Bruce looks into the kid’s eyes and makes sure to adjust his voice into a soft humming before speaking.

“Milk or water?”, he asks, because he’s tried to ask other questions before, normal questions like _how are you_ , or _are you hurt_ or _do you want to stop now_ , but Dick’s still too angry for that, or maybe he still doesn’t trust Bruce enough to answer him honestly.

“What about cocoa?”, Dick asks back, after a moment of silent consideration.

“I’m not Alfred.”

“Meaning you don’t know how to do it?”

Bruce is moderately convinced he knows how to make a cocoa, or at least the steps necessary to transform cocoa powder into cocoa liquid, which should be more or less the same thing, provided that a lot of sugar would cover any mistakes anyway.

“I can hardly imagine it to be such a hard task.”

Dick sighs, and even in the dark Bruce can almost see the eye-rolling. It makes him smile.

“Okay, I guess I’ll have to teach it to you”, Dick says with exaggerated contempt in his voice. Bruce isn’t even sure Dick actually knows how to make a cocoa or if he’s even allowed in the kitchen in the first place.

“Okay”, he answers anyway.

And it sounds easy and very domestic, like they were a normal family, when, in truth, Bruce doesn’t even know if they’re a family at all, if they ever will be one, or even if they _want_ to be one. And Dick probably doesn’t know either, because despite his snarkiness and his apparent self-confidence he doesn’t move just yet, and they stay in the dark for a little more, quiet and hidden, while the snow keeps falling.

Not for the first time, Bruce wonders if this wall between them it’s his fault or Batman’s, if for Dick’s the same thing, if Robin is a mistake, if they are going to regret it sooner or later. 

He also wonders where Alfred might keep the pots, and if they're going to need pots at all.

“Should we turn on the lights?”, Bruce asks eventually, because he may not know much about families anymore, but he knows about responsibilities, and doing the right thing, no matter how small it is.

“Yeah, we would make a mess if we tried to cook in the dark”, Dick agrees, sounding almost relieved, and since he’s the closest to it, he presses the light switch, flooding the room with white light.

Bruce realizes he's still smiling only when Dick looks up at him and smiles back.

**Author's Note:**

> \- Written for the COWT #10 @ landedifandom (yep, it's that time of the year again)


End file.
